PRODUCT SUPPORT AND MAINTENANCE PROGRAMS

Byers provides product support and maintenance services for all of its products.  These services provide the subscriber with a certain level of ongoing technical assistance (i.e., support) and access to software updates (i.e., maintenance).  The subscriber is the individual or company who has licensed one or more products from Byers, and who is entitled to product support and maintenance services under the terms and conditions of its Software License Agreement with Byers.

Customers purchasing a product for the first time receive 30 days of product maintenance and support at no charge. Customers are encouraged to sign up for annual maintenance. Designated products require a maintenance subscription. Customers not on maintenance will be charged for all upgrades with an upgrade fee based on 50% of the current list price of the software for the cumulative number of current customer licenses. All new releases must be purchased for the total number of existing licensed copies, at minimum.

Annual maintenance carries an annual fee equal to 20 percent of the current software price for customer's total number of licensed copies.  Program charges are billed annually, 90 days prior to renewal date.

Product Maintenance

Byers makes periodic updates to its products to correct errors, make enhancements, or improve performance.  An update is defined as a minor release to the current version that results in a patch, bug fix, updated documentation, or improved performance of the product.  Subscribers are entitled to any and all updates to the version of the product licensed by the subscriber during the support term.

Subscribers are also entitled to any and all upgrades to the version of the product licensed by the subscriber during the support term.  An upgrade is defined as a change to the product that substantially enhances the functionality of the product and/or results in a change in the version number of the product to the left of the decimal point.

Product Support

Technical assistance is provided to subscribers to enable Byers to determine and resolve product problems and questions.  Technical assistance does not include consultations on software or configuration design, code or configuration review, or code or configuration development of a subscriber's solution.  Please see Developer Support for more information.

Support is pro-active, with personalized contact both to and from the subscriber via any and all contact methods - web, e-mail, telephone, and facsimile.  The designated support contact may make unlimited requests for assistance to Byers Customer Support Department. 

Support Services Availability and Coverage

Electronic access is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Byers Customer Support Department is open Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST, except on designated Byers holidays.  Requests for assistance received after the daily coverage period shall be deemed to have been received on the next day of business.

Phone: 404.497.1551

Toll Free: 888.263.4396

Fax: 404.843.2000

Email: support@byers.com

FTP: ftp.byers.com

Support Services Response Objectives

Byers shall use reasonable efforts to meet the following objectives for support of each Byers product.

Severity Level Definitions

Each defect has a severity level which is determined and assigned when the defect report is created.   Severity definitions are based upon the impact to the application or end user.  The end user may be either an internal or external customer.  There are four levels of severity: 

• Critical Severity - A critical defect causes a complete loss of service (the subscriber cannot perform operations) within a critical portion of the application and work cannot continue and a work-around is not available or is generally unacceptable.
• High Severity - A high defect causes a severe loss of service, but operations may continue in a restricted manner.  High-level defects must be repeatable; that is a failure that cannot be repeated is not assigned a high level severity.
• Normal Severity - A normal defect causes minimal loss of service.  The impact of the problem is an inconvenience.
• Minor Severity - A minor defect causes no loss of service. The problem is a minor error, incorrect behavior, or a documentation error that in no way impedes the operation of a system.

Problem Resolution Stages

After the initial response, Byers will provide a response update to the subscriber according to the schedule above.  Byers will use the following objectives for the problem resolution:

• Response - A technically qualified engineer is working on the problem.
• Resolution - Subscriber's operation is no longer at risk due to the original problem, or the subscriber understands and accepts all risk.  A permanent problem resolution may be available in a subsequent revision.

Additional Support Options

Byers may also provide on-site technical assistance to augment any such remote technical assistance.  On-site technical assistance shall be chargeable to the subscriber based on Byers then current on-site support services fees and policy.  On-site technical assistance is not included in the services provided in the maintenance and support subscription described above.

Developer Support

Byers Developer Support group assists professional developers using Byers technology.

The Developer Support group specializes in solving development issues related to Byers software.  The group has extensive programming skills and in-depth knowledge of Byers products and technology.  The Developer Support group can assist customers with application configuration, application design and architecture, code review and system design.  Byers experts can guide customers through the most challenging development issues by phone, fax or email.  Byers works with customers to solve technical problems and suggests new and better ways to architect solutions, and we can help our customers solve the most difficult technical problems and meet time-critical needs.  The benefit to the customer is decreased development time and greater assurance that the application will be designed optimally.

Developer Support offers hourly blocks of support specifically for developers.  Developer Support is not included in the services provided in the maintenance and support subscription described above. 

Developed Software Support

In the course of implementing solutions based on Byers technology, many customers contract with Byers to develop custom product configurations and software.  Byers provides on-going maintenance for developed software to include:

• Repair of developed software defects after the warranty period has expired (typically 90 days after delivery)
• Maintenance and certification of the developed software's compatibility with later versions of the licensed software, and
• Platform version/release upgrades for operating systems and/or databases (anticipated to be approximately one per year, each).

This maintenance guarantees that the custom software works properly whenever a customer upgrades its systems or upgrades to a new version of the licensed software.  Annual maintenance of developed software carries an annual fee equal to 30 percent of the developed software cost. 

Optionally, Byers will work with the customer to develop a custom maintenance price and plan where Byers and the customer jointly manage the work performed under the developed software maintenance contract.  This allows the customer to manage the balance between bug fixes, enhancements, platform upgrades and COTS releases of Byers products from year to year.

Subscriber Responsibilities

Subscriber problem reports to Byers must contain all pertinent information regarding the issue, including, but not limited to, the following: 

• the Byers software/revision number
• operating system/version number
• development platform
• problem description
• log files
• test case(s) and
• problem severity. 

Subscribers must execute diagnostic routines or test cases if provided by Byers, and must inform Byers of the results.  Subscribers also must verify the existence of a product problem and provide the conditions under which Byers may duplicate it at a Byers location.  All problems must be reported in English.

Technical Contact

During the period of time in which Byers is working on a subscriber issue, the subscriber shall provide a technical contact who is familiar with the product problem and the subscriber environment.

Remote Access

By purchasing software support and maintenance services, the subscriber agrees to permit Byers to access the subscriber's computer system remotely for the sole purpose of diagnosing any reported problem with the product including, but not limited to, granting Byers permission to install remote access software on the subscriber's computer system(s) upon which the product has been installed.  All standard confidentiality provisions identified in the Software License Agreement shall apply.  The subscriber shall provide remote access via dial-in or internet when required by Byers to analyze the problem.

Service Limitations

• On release of the current version of the product, Byers will support the current version of the product, and continue to support and maintain the product version released immediately prior to the current version, in accordance with the then prevailing End-of-Life policy. The current version is defined as the version of the product that is commercially available for sale by Byers.
• All associated computer hardware and operating system software and product must be maintained at the latest version deemed necessary by Byers.  Byers shall not be obliged to provide support services under this policy if the service is regarding hardware, software or product that does not conform to the above statement.  Any and each such service shall be provided at the sole discretion of Byers.

On-site services will be provided by quotation, are not covered by this policy, and shall be provided at the sole discretion of Byers.  Additional Byers consulting and/or coding services may be available to the subscriber under a separate agreement.  Byers may provide assistance to help optimize or enhance subscriber's use of the product.  When Byers determines that any such assistance has exceeded a reasonable level, Byers will supply a quotation for additional Consulting Services.